Hannover Hotel hilarity

Good morning my darling,

It's 7am here, 6am where you are. And amazingly I slept like a baby, but what a frantic night.

Everything was going perfectly with getting to Stansted, and the flight, and getting the train into Hannover (last time I'd taken a taxi which cost fifty quid, this time I'd mastered the train, which cost €3.50). And I used the maps on my phone to navigate the walk to the hotel.

Then I get up to the door of the Hotel Revery to find it's an unmanned door with a keypad and a set of boxes. It says to type in the code you were sent by email. Only I wasn't sent a code by email. I have, in my pocket, the hotel reservation printout, and that's got no code on it. There's no one there to answer any doorbell, it's 10.30 at night. And just as I start to look for this mysterious email on my phone, my battery dies.

I know, a bit much to expect a phone to stay charged for five whole hours! (It was fully charged when I got out of the car at Stansted at 5.15, and of course it was really only 9.30 at night in old money, 10.30 Hannover time). So my phone's a slab and I'm stuck in Hannover with no hotel!

I go into an Italian restaurant which is closing up, and I beg them to let me plug my phone in. They're really helpful. But with my phone charged up, I can't get a signal or any wifi, and looking through the emails, which luckily I can access, I see nothing about a keycode.

In desperation I go to the nearest hotel, which is a slightly upmarket Mercure, and I book a room, costing €123, and here I am. Very nice.

When I get settled in my room and finally get my email, I see my teacher has sent a last minute email at 10.30 at night, passing on the keycode. I've already explained it was a bit late.

So hopefully I'll get into my proper hotel en route to school, after I've had breakfast here.

So, our zoo?

K xxxxxxxx

The Tamagotchi Incident

This selling stuff on eBay malarkey has not been without incident. Mostly I put stuff up there, it sells or it doesn't, and I hear no more about it. Now that I've learned to describe the flaws in the comics in detail in the listings (some early comics had loose pages, writing on etc, which I hadn't spotted, so now I go scrupulously through every page in every comic in every job lot, and it seems to do the trick).

Then I put a Tamagotchi, which Hev had got as a present 20 years ago, on eBay. Its unique selling point being that it's unopened, so still has the tab over the battery. It's never even been switched on. Surely that makes it all the more valuable. Well, someone called "mmbopresto" thinks so, and pays £21 for it.

The Original Listing:

Tamagotchi  Tamaotch, aka Tamagotch's. Pink with cherry blossoms pattern. Sealed - BANDAI 1998 rare Bought In Japan. Unopened (except to take these photos), the battery strip hasn't been removed (as you can see in the photos). Small mark on back cover from where a label has been removed (visible in photos).Slight daylight discolouration of Tamagotchi device itself (very slight yellowing, visible in photos).Dispatched with Royal Mail 2nd Class.

Then a few few days later, this correspondence begins...

mmbopresto_0: Hi I finally managed to get the screws out of the back of this which were completely jammed in, doesn't work , keeps resetting. very disappointed

Why did you need to take the screws out of the back?

KFS

mmbopresto_0: because the battery were completely dead and it wasn't working

I'm sorry about that. It's a 20 year old unopened Tamagotchi, so I guess that was a possibility. 

I don't know what to say. Sorry again.

KFS

mmbopresto_0: I understand that but please don't sell something if you unless u know that it's working, I have 22 other tamagotchi all from the 90s and they all work, a refund would be greatly appreciated before i leave feedback. I know it's not really your fault but it's not mine either.

The tab was in the battery, that was a unique selling point. It was unopened and untampered with.

If it's been unscrewed it's no longer the item I sold.

KFS

mmbopresto_0 (102)

Ok . I will leave you bad feedback then

Please don't do that. I think we need to reach a settlement.

I sold the Tamagotchi as unopened, with tab in battery, and from 1998. So, with those details, there is no way the batteries could be tested. Would that be accurate?

KFS

PS: Forgive me if there's a delay in replying, I have an early start tomorrow so am turning in. Please don't leave negative feedback, I feel we can resolve this.

Hi,

Would you accept a partial refund, and you keep the opened Tamagotchi?

KFS

Dear scottishfalsetto, Ok - mmbopresto_0

Dear mmbopresto_0, £5 refund? You now have the Tamagotchi to resell. KFS

Dear scottishfalsetto, I cant sell a broken tamagotchi , dont bother with the refund , id rather just leave bad feedback - mmbopresto_0

How infuriating is this? He accepts a refund then goes back on his word. Then I go to eBay and find he's left the negative feedback anyway. He's had his partial refund, I'll look later to see if he's been good to his word and removed the feedback (my only negative feedback, might I add). Ooh, I'm seething.

Onwards and upwards.

Socks Roll Up First tryouts Leicester Feb 15 & 16

As the audience were leaving after the first of these two nights at Leicester Comedy Festival, I heard someone saying to a friend “so it was mostly Superheroes.”

Which was very true. Every year, in Leicester in February, I have the choice of trying out the brand new show which I’m developing to take to Edinburgh in August, or giving them the complete and polished show that we did in Edinburgh the previous year. Or a mixture of the two. This year we went for the mixture.

Last year (as you’ll see below*) we tried out an all new show, about half of which made it into the final finished product. This meant Leicester hadn’t seen most of the good stuff, so we gave them 40 minutes of Superheroes (editing out the Racist Brother material and All By Myself) and 20 minutes of new stuff. I say new, about 10 minutes of it was the Magic Routine which is a staple of our touring show and which is, so far, the only good bit of Roll Up.

The new material they got (in different orders on the two nights) was:

Roll Up gags inc Funambulism, Anabolic, Bare Knuckles, Paul Daniels, Yogi, Sufi, Gnostics, Kung Fu and Yurt. All good. So we have one minute in the bag.

Greatest Show opening (Sat only) - doesn’t work yet

Anne Hathaway song - gets laughs, better integrated in Saturday show

Statue Of Liberty routine - not funny yet

Tom Thumb routine (Fri only) - not funny

Les Mis routine - too long, only funny in small parts, doesn’t quite fit

Magic routine - excellent as always, but overshadowed other stuff

City Of Stars song - funny in parts, ends poorly

We then rounded off the show with the Superheroes finale, then a song. 

(Fri) Don’t Let’s Be Beastly To The Leavers - good, needs to lose a verse, does it fit in this show?

(Sat) Gary Barlow Brexit routine & song - very good, again does it fit?

So I’m in as good a position as I was in years like Shakespeare (16) and Space (13), which ended up being my favourite shows despite being almost entirely unwritten by the end of February. As I type this I am sat on the balcony of the Teatro cafe in Clevedon (yes, it’s that warm in February) seeing if I can get some bloody writing done today. One hour later I appear to have written this and nothing else yet. Onwards and upwards.

* Past years at Leicester have gone like this:

2018 - Mostly new Superheroes, with a bizarre amount of Christmas material in there. 

2017 - Shakespeare (2016), because there was no new show that year.

2016 - Mostly last year’s Minging Detectives, with 10 minutes of new Shakespeare 

2015 - Mostly last year’s And So Am I, with 20 minutes of new Minging Detectives

2014 - Socks In Space (2013). So we didn’t start writing that year’s And So Am I until later in the year.

2013 - Even by Glasgow in March we didn’t have a new show-full, so Socks In Space was a slow developer. So many dropped routines were being tried like The Melies Brothers, the 6 Million Dollar Man, and a Taylor Swift song I’d forgotten we ever did.

2012 - I have no record, but I imagine it was the Best Of show that we were about to take to Adelaide

2011 and earlier I have no record for, those shows’ gestation being lost to the mists of time.

Mar 20/21 - Dram Glasgow 

Mar 22 - Britannia Panopticon Glasgow

April 5 - Chorley Little Theatre 90 min (Superheroes)

April 6 - Rondo Bath 90 mins (Superheroes)

April 12 - Ropewalk Barton 90 min (Superheroes)

April 13 - Artrix Bromsgrove 90 min (Superheroes)

May 24 - Victoria Halifax Roll Up 

June 1 & 2 - Brighton Komedia
June 8 - Harlequin, Reigate

July 8 - OSO Barnes Fringe

July 19 - Kings Arms, Greater Manchester Fringe

July 20 - Bedford Fringe

July 30 - Aug 25 - Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe 9.30pm

Captain Britain, the big seller on eBay

More stuff sold on eBay, this batch being possibly the most lucrative and cost effective. Having learned not to put a Buy Now price on these items, I’ve already saved 50p a time. And as long as I’m happy to part with the tokens of my childhood, and I’m not feeling any pangs of loss yet, then it seems job lots of 10 to 20 comics at a time will make at least a fiver, and as much as twenty quid.

Captain Britain has been the biggest seller, these being originals rather than reprint comics (though the fact that people will pay for old British reprints is heartening, as I have many more boxes of those to plough through). No 8 was the biggie, who knew? 

I feel the need to keep a tally as I go along, to make some sense of whether this is a time wasting exercise or not. It feels great when money comes in, but I may be kidding myself that it’s not more bother than it’s worth. (Can I say, I’m finding it great fun dammit). 

SOLD since Feb 11th:

Captain Britain No 7 & 8.  £42.00

Captain Britain 24.  £29.10

Captain Britain No 1  £27.67

20 x Strip comic. £20.00

20 x Spider Man weekly  £16.51

17 x Spiderman weekly   £12.00

22 x Spider Man weekly. £10.50

Comic Rock magazine £10.00

Valiant Summer Special. £9.62

3 x Cor!! Summer specials. £9.60

Flexipop + 3 mags. £8.61

Big Numbers no 1.   £7.55

20 x Spider Man weekly. £7.50

16 x Rampage weekly (inc no 2). £7.50

4 x Mad mags Starsky. £6.51

10 x Planet Of The Apes. £6.50

3 x Capt Britain 16-18. £6.00

6 x Mad mags Rocky. £5.87

NME 1983 x 5.  £5.55

19 x NMEs £5.50 (expensive to post, slight loss)

4 x Cracked mag.  £5.50

12 x MWOM inc No 100. £5.50

3 x Capt Britain 36-39. £5.50

3 x Capt Britain  10-12. £5.50

3 x Capt Britain 13-15. £5.00

2 x Capt Britain 22,23. £4.20

8 x audio cassettes various.  £4.00

Dr Who Classic comics  £3.50

3 x Capt Britain 19-21. £3.20

8 x Speakeasy. £3.20

9 x Cor!! Comics. £3.20

4 x audio cassettes (Blondie +) £2.70

4 x audio cassettes (Kate Bush+). £2.50

10 Years with Maggie cassette. £2.50

Desperate Dan figure. £2.50

Starburst mag No 2. £2.50

Radio Times 1975. £2.50

Krazy Kat book.  £2.50

Marshal Law special. £2.50

5 x Marvel UK various. £2.50

4 x Mad mag Omen. £2.50

3 x Capt Britain 29-31  £2.50

3 x Capt Britain 33-35. £2.50

Captain Britain No 2.  £2.50

Dan Dare special. £2.50

Dr Who special C Baker. £2.50

Dr Who Special T Baker £2.50

TOTAL taken (excluding postage, and before eBay have taken their percentage) 

Feb 11 - 20: £342.59

So, again, equivalent to a day’s work. And has it taken a whole day? Quite possibly not. When it’s cost effective, it pays. However, there is time wasted with unsold items to take into consideration, sheet music being the current loss leader. I have a mountain of sheet music and hardly any takers yet. I think those will be going into bigger job lots shortly.

UPDATE: Captain Britain keeps selling. 

I said everything must go and everything Captain Britain related in my collection has now gone (subject to one buyer, who bought most of it, paying and his stuff going in the post).

Here’s the tally that closed between the 20th and 22nd of Feb (which I’m maybe totting up to make myself feel better about getting sod all work done. Next week the schools kick in, so there’ll be no more of this nonsense for a while).

Tamagotchi      £21.00

Spawn 1.      £20.00

8 x Hulk.       £14.08

Revolver 1 + Romance.  £13.00

2 x David Cassidy annual.  £10.00

9 x Rampage.    £9.01

Phantom Stranger 10.    £7.50

2 x harmonicas.   £7.00

Capt Britain 16-18  £6.00

Capt Britain 36 - 39.  £5.50

Songs of Robert Burns.  £5.50

5 x Conan.    £4.71

Binoculars     £4.70

Capt Britain 22 & 23. £4.20

Capt Britain 19-21. £3.20

6 x Sheet Music Carousel.  £2.50

Masonic music.    £2.50

Capt Britain 32-35.  £2.50

Capt Britain 29-31. £2.50

Capt Britain 2. £2.50

TOTAL.   £147.90

My items on eBay

Nachos, Tomatoes, Lemons & Chicken - first kids comics of the year

This is the slowest start to the Comic Art Masterclasses I've seen for many years (by end of Jan last year I'd done 7 days in schools, and in Feb published another 4 batches of kids comics here on the blog). Inevitably, thanks to the funeral and the house clearing, I've not done a heavy emailing of schools, which I think I usually do at the start of the year, so it's ended up spookily quiet. By the middle of February I've been to three schools. But what wonderful work they've created, these from Willersey Primary in Gloucestershire.

The culinary theme continues with these comics from St Josephs Primary in Swansea. The chicken nuggets I mean, not the other one.

And at Salisbury Arts Centre they've gone double edible, with nachos and a tomato. I have to say, with these cover designs, I'm just warming up for the year and haven't got into my stride. They are, to continue the theme, a bit vanilla.

The six celebrities these first groups of the year chose for my demonstration strip (only 10 months till I tot up the most popular celebrity of the year) were Daniel Radcliffe, James Charles (youtuber), Harry Kane, Meghan Markle, Justin Bieber, and (the trend starts here) Donald Trump.

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here. 

A satisfying lot of stuff on eBay

Though it's only a couple of days since I was professing frustration with the time I was wasting uploading stuff to eBay, I just put another mountain on there and this time I'm looking at a very satisfying pile to take to the post office. Here's what I just cleared out, mostly from the shelves of Private and my Windmill Gardens bedroom...

Buster annual 74, 75, 76                 £18.09

Valiant & TV21 x 18                        £12.25

White Christmas sheet music         £10.00

Time out mags 1983 x 4                 £10.00

Cor!! Comics x 13                           £9.50

Buster & Cor!! Comics x 31            £8.50

Frankie Stein Summer special 75   £5.55

Cor!! Annual 74, 75 Whoopee 76.   £5.03

Buster Holiday special 75               £4.20

Buster comics x 16                         £3.79

Donald & Mickey comics x 13        £3.50

Total for clearing a shelf                 £90.41 (excluding postage)   

(I love a good bidding war. This was for the Buster annuals)

You're right, I'd get more auctioning dogs, but as a satisfying weekend exercise that can be done in downtime, it's painless and fun. As for the stuff that's waiting to sell, including sheet music and cassette tapes, we won't be looking at such easy to shift success. And now back to some proper work.

BEWARE THE FEES!

The Fees! The Fees!

As a couple of months of listing stuff on eBay approach a hiatus (that is I start getting proper busy next week, so won’t have time for this nonsense) I’ve done some satisfying clearing out of shelves and boxes (though the storage unit is still stacked at least 5 boxes high by 6 boxes wide by 7 boxes deep at a guess, so that’s over 200 boxes still to empty. Probably).

I’ve taken just over a thousand quid in the last 60 days, with £112 and a bit amount of stuff up there waiting to sell. But beware the fees. 

I’m about to be billed £149 for fees on the last month’s stuff. I had sort of known about the fees, but sort of not. For example the 50p Buy It Now fee.

Who knew you paid the 50p Buy It Now fee, even if the item doesn’t sell? Well, I know now!

The “List It Free” offers that my screen is full of. I thought I was getting that on everything I listed. Yes, I know now!

It’s roughly 10%. So, things that sell for £2.50 (which is most things) cost me 25p. NMEs that went for a fiver cost me 55p. The clavinova is about to cost me £25.

Things that didn’t sell, but that I put a Buy It Now price on, cost me 50p. Ooh I’m an idiot.

I’m scrolling down all those Buy It Now listings for stuff that didn’t sell, kicking myself. No more Buy It Now!

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries & art centres. email for details. Facebook, Twitter. Promo video here. 

A Tales From The Crypt parody? Again?

How often have I done this parody? I lose count. So I had to come up with a cover for the Tales From The Bible comic, now that the plan is to collect all 95 pages of story into one book. And try as I might I couldn't do better than this doodle...

Which turned into this first draft rough...

Which, after my editor Rachel had pointed out the tentpeg looked like it was heading for somewhere far more emasculating than is in the actual story, turned into this coloured visual...

Which got the go ahead and became this piece of finished artwork, with a logo I'm quite pleased with though I say so myself...

I really hope we're going to be seeing this in shops this year, it would absolutely delight me. It's the work that I'm proudest of ever. And the cover was, of course, a spoof of this...

And, though I've not done the knife-throwing Jack Davis composition before, I've done enough EC and Tales Of The Crypt parodies, on school comics and elsewhere. Here's one I did for Gas, neither today nor yesterday...

Not an original bone in my head.

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries & art centres. email for details. Facebook, Twitter. Promo video here. 

Mountains of tut on eBay

I have put so many mountains of tut (how do you spell that word? Is it toot? You know what I mean) on eBay that there's no time to list them here. Indeed the time I've spent putting them up there is way disproportionate to the amount they bring in. It is satisfying to get some boxes emptied though, and making the storage unit lighter would be a good thing. Though progress is slow.

What I've learned is that individual items rarely go. Though I got some interest in a 1978 Record Mirror, a bundle of NMEs only got a bid after a week of being listed individually to no response, then being bunged together as a job lot. Most things go for £2.50.

Biggest ticket item was the Clavinova, which fetched £225. Again they seem to go for more in other peoples listings, but because it had to be collected, that limited the pool of buyers.

Here for the record are my recent sales and what they've fetched (exclusive of postage)

Clavinova                                 £225.00
Trigan Empire book                  £48.50
Fowlers Universal Calculator   £42.00
Valiant Book of Mystery           £26.00
Polaroid camera                        £26.00
Remote controlled Daleks x 3 . £20.00
10 Whoopees & Shiver & Shakes . £20

Beryl The Peril annuals             £19.35
Dredd board game                      £17.50
Oor Wullie Broons x 4              £15.00
Smash annuals x 4                     £13.63
6 x NMEs 2001                         £10.00
Doctor Who annual 78              £10.00
Dr Who figs Eccleston 3            £10.00

Superman Annual 1960             £9.90
Dennis The Menace annuals      £8.50
15 x Look-Ins                             £8.00
Dr Who figs Wolf & Angel       £8.00
14 Look-Ins                               £8.01
4 x Marvel B&W mags .           £6.61
Planet Des Singes no 1              £6.56
Load Runner comic                   £5.50
Planet Of The Apes no 2           £5.00

Eagle annuals x 3                       £4.95
Dr Who figs Tennant x 3 .         £4.20
3 Lion annuals                           £3.20
VHS Shada                                 £3.72
Record Mirror 1978                   £3.71
Buster annual 1966                    £3.29
Daredevil 181                            £3.20
2 x NMEs 1983                         £2.90
Daredevil 180                           £2.80
Film Show annual                      £2.50
Daredevil 177                           £2.50
2000AD annual 79                   £2.50
2000ad annual 84 & 85            £2.50
2000AD annuals 86-88            £2.50
Judge Dredd annuals x 3          £2.50
TV21 annual 1969                   £2.50
Beano & Sparky annuals .        £2.07
Valiant annuals x 3                    £2.00
3 x Doctor Who adventures .   £1.99
2 Dandy Annuals                      £1.80
VHS Hartnell Years                   £1.20
Look In annual                           £1.10
Dr Who adventures no 1 .          99p
9 x Dr Who VHS tapes .           90p each
VHS Death To The Daleks .      50p

So it adds up. To a couple of day's pay if I was working at a school or drawing comics. And that's before I've deducted eBay's percentage, Paypal's percentage, and envelopes, sellotape, and my time spent wrapping & schlepping to the Post Office. It's strangely addictive, but it won't be such a bad thing when I become too busy for such silliness very shortly.

The lesson I've learned is that there's money to be raised by selling The Family Silver (eg Trigan Empire book, Clavinova, and slightly rare books and comics - almost all of the above coming from the cupboards of Kibworth, meaning I've not seen them or remembered their existence for 40 years so won't miss them), and not to price anything as low as I did with those VHS tapes. If it doesn't go for £2.50, then I might as well keep it or take it to the charity shop.

Here's the checklist of what I'd put up by Jan 17th, most of which didn't sell. (Ebay doesn't give me a list of unsold items that I've removed from sale after they've flopped, but they include two Hurricane annuals and a kids Encyclopedia from my childhood, neither of which was ever going to get a bite. The unsold Doctor Who Adventures mags and Dr Who VHS tapes have gone back into storage till history wises up about their value.)

And the next stupid thing I've tried listing? Sheet music. Not a bite. And I've got mountains of this stuff which, you'd think, would be rare as hens teeth and twice as collectible. I know nothing.

My Stuff for sale on eBay

McCartney etc - Facebook drivel

Some drivel I've posted on Facebook recently, rather than get on with proper work.

Re Ariana Grande tattoo: Mental note, when doing review of the year in the style of The Twelve Days Of Christmas, replace "five gold rings" with "small charcoal grill". That'll be me and every topical comedy show of 2019 then.

(She meant to write 7 Rings on her hand in Japanese but wrote Small Charcoal Grill. Well, I'll get the gag when someone does it in 11 months time).

Jan 24:

Who doesn't believe in at least one conspiracy theory?

I don't mean these (which are dreadful cases of cyber-bullying by malicious zealots) but theories which are not the official truth? I, for example, still think Lee Harvey Oswald didn't kill JFK and that it was, for want of a better word, a conspiracy. Am I a deluded nutter who saw too many documentaries about it?

For the record I also believe William Randolph Hearst accidentally shot an actor called Ince on his yacht, while trying to shoot Charlie Chaplin, and that in the conspiracy to cover it up, Louella Parsons' silence was bought by a lifetime contract with Hearst's papers. Actually saying it out loud, I do feel a bit of a looney. But am I wrong to find a story plausible, even when it's not completely confirmed? Where do we draw the line between open-minded and gullible?

Jan 27:

Well how about that. Who else knew the really famous sitcom part that Alex Borstein (Susie out of Marvelous Mrs Maisel) has been playing all these years? I just this second found out she's the voice of....

But I won't spoil it for you. If you don't already know, Google it. Isn't that brilliant?*

*Unless of course you've never watched either series, in which case sorry for wasting your time.

"Dear Leave voters..."

I have just scrolled past three of my Facebook friends addressing questions, here, to Leave voters. Is it just me, or didn't everyone here just spend the last two year defriending every Leave voter they ever knew?

If you are a Leave voter, do please say hi, and I'll direct you to my colleagues who are crying in the wilderness and seeking your opinions.

Jan 16:

Just watched Doctor Who Resolution (2019) and am halfway through watching Dalek (2005). It's like reading Shakespeare after you've just read a Post-It pad.

(In case you've been giving Chibnall the benefit of the doubt, try this simple compare-and-contrast test with any recent episode vs any ep 2005-2009. It's shocking. )

When I was a kid, the Venn diagram of Star Trek Fans and people who'd recognise a song from Rent, would have had way less of an overlap. This is smashing.

Gives me hope for the Scottish Falsetto Socks yet. (Last year's Superheroes show sang about Avengers Infinity War to a medley of Scottish songs inc Donald Whaur's Yer Troosers and A Scottish Soldier. I believe the Venn diagram had less of an overlap than I hoped.)

Jan 23:

"Jim Davidson admits he's never changed a nappy. Foul-smelling and disgusting to deal with, Davidson has been on television for 40 years." - Every topical comedy show, this Friday #mocktheweek #newsquiz#thelastleg #hignfy

Dream Diary: Cathedral

Thurs night dream.

Hev and I are driving to London along and flames start coming out pf the front of my car (a wide white old American 60s car) so we have to pull off the motorway junction (aerial shot it looks like Monte Carlo or somewhere) and we pull up in a town with a Cathedral. We park the car in a cobbled Goegrian St and, oddly, you walk across a patch of grass and that’s level with the top of the sire of the cathedral spire which you walk down into it from.

Walk down the narrow steps, sometimes feeling they’l be too narrow to squeeze down (common motif in my dreams) and we get to reception and are shushed for making noise cos there’s something important going on next door (in the shop it looks like). Woman in reception gets second chance to tell me off later and I think of snappy comeback to say to her but not until it’s too late.

It seems we want to wait to get up to the top of the spire again to get back to our car, ( or are we waiting to get a plane trainor ferry to somewhere more important?) and there are these really inconvenient lots, like chairs dangling from a pole that, when you sit in them, will haul you upside down. It’s like a Ferris wheel, or a round glass elevator. We squeeze past locals, who are all very posh and are at ticket desk which we bypass. There is talk that no one lives here, it’s all for tourists. Anyway, we can’t get on this lift so have to wait for the next one to come so we’re in the waiting room where people are discussing jobs they’re working on..

There’s.a comic book in production, and it teases a new DC character and it seems from the comic its going to be played by Chelsea Hart. She’s there and we congratulate her, she walks us round the outside of the cathedral to get back round to our car. It’s raining now.

Then we’re back in the cathedral waiting to get out. Someone asks if the guy from the big animation studio knows when we’ll be leaving. This refers to some friend of mine who it’s amusing that anyone would think is the big animation guy. Then a woman in black, in black shades, she’s American maybe based on old Marvel editors, who has an office there, says that all the work on the animation or comic has gone, and I say I’m not bothered cos we turned up at this cathedral by accident cos our car was on fire so easy come easy go. She tells us we can get out by not waiting for the lift but going back up the steps.

She has TV awards. I make a joke: “Of course I’ve got my BAFTA, can’t remember who I stole it off”. We leave and are struggling to put layers of clothes on, trousers over socks and shoes, while I rail angrily about this dreadful place and the frustrations it’s caused us. It is already 4pm and we set off for London early in the morning, so this has wasted our whole day.

We are about to walk back to the car, and the staff from the canteen are leaving, when I wake up.

More gibberish, scribbled the morning on Thurs 14th Feb:

Dream

Dropped egg thru table while auditioning for Kiri Ti Kanawi fell thru table thru hole in ground.

In school, likely festival but lots of meet and germ events, Kids putting on show, Walking round with big full plates of dod. Like a string of school canteens.

Going for a walk in the country, but like up in the woods, with balloons that mad e big faces f famous people, like rock stars.

Some mountain steep sides

Later meeting up with Hev who was working on laptop in canteen . She’d sepearted from me earlier when I got talking to two younger friends who I wanted to introduce her to but couldn’t remember their names, till I looked them up in a pamphlet.

In real life, when we woke up, Hev told me her dream which involved going to a big event which was bigger than we thought , famous people there including Slade who we already knew.